Fashioning the Body: Versions of the Citizen, the Self, and the Subject

This is to announce the passing of a pair of glasses. The glasses, lovingly crafted by the employees of one Oscar de la Renta, were royal blue and faintly shaped like the eye of a domestic feline. Their insides were mahogany. Soon after their birth in 1999 they were bestowed upon a young woman of fifteen, who was joyous to receive them.

Throughout their childhood, the glasses lived half of their life on the girl's face, upon the bridge of her nose, and the other half on her bedside table. The girl (their mistress) betrayed them soon after by switching to contact lenses, and so the glasses' forays into the world at large became fewer and farther between. However, this was much compensated for when the girl took them to Norway, and later on, Paris. The glasses saw many wonderful sights of the Northern Lights, reindeer, sailing ships, cow's udders and snow, snow, snow. In France, the glasses learned to appreciate fine dining, art and culture (as well as seeing one too many empty bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau).

The glasses enjoyed a whirlwind late girlhood - they were complimented by men and women alike, even fetishized by some. However, as the days passed they became less nimble, in need of constant cleaning and adjusting, and spending more time than ever staring up at the velvet ceiling of their embossed carrying case.

The end drew near when, one autumn, their mistress decided to go work on a farm harvesting Japanese Lanterns. The glasses barely got to see any of the beautiful orange flowers - they spent most of their time on the bedside table, as usual. The day came, at last, for the girl to depart for home - the glasses were so excited they could hardly stand it. To their great dismay, however, their absent-minded owner left the farm without them, abandoning them to the unfamiliar bedside table. They were put back in their case by a well-intentioned stranger (the owner of the farm), and stayed in this makeshift foster home for three months before being sent back to their hometown in someone's purse. A message was sent to the girl, begging her to come and reclaim ownership, but the girl - coming slowly into womanhood and ablaze with new distractions - could never find the time to reply. The glasses were never retrieved, and ended their days in loneliness and desertion. They were thrown into a dumpster and never heard from again.

They are survived by a royal blue carrying case and polishing cloth. They were six years old.